Conservatism and me: What went wrong and where I stand; part one of a series

You might have noticed a theme running through my writing over the last nine years. I'm giving to writing about why everything - but the United States most specifically - is doomed. Given the sheer volume that I've published, there's no shortage of ways to move that theme along. I'll also admit that it's both fun for me and goes a long way in clarifying my thinking.

I thought that I'd take this time to clearly spell out what I think the problems are and where I stand on them. Because I intend to lean heavily on history, I obviously won't be able to do it one post. Also, complicated problems almost never have simple answers. One of the primary threats facing us is that modern politics doesn't allow for recognizing that. Bumper sticker slogans that are supposed to pass for solutions have accomplished nothing other than accelerating the downward spiral.

This will very probably become a multiple-part series that I write over the course of several days or weeks, depending on how busy or lazy I am. My long-time readers will note that I have said much of what I intend to say here before. But I think that putting it all in one place will make things easier for those who have come here more recently.

I'll focus most heavily on American politics generally and the Republican Party specifically. This is because they provide the clearest examples of what went wrong. Furthermore, the transformation of the GOP served as a guiding light for first the Reform Party, and then the Harper Conservatives. Most likely, I'll give some attention to Reform because they reinvigorated populism in Canada at the expense of conservatism.

By no means is the Republican Party solely to blame for the catastrophe that is dragging America into irreversible decline. In fact, until the second Bush administration went about destroying everything in sight, I was a strong supporter of the GOP, although I diverged from them on social issues, which a truly small federal government should have nothing to do with. You cannot believe, as most Republicans do, that the federal government can't deliver the mail but should be a moral example, protect marriage and save people from themselves. Well, you can, as we've seen, but you look like an idiot in the process.

If you read my stuff from 2004 and 2005, you'll find that I broke with the GOP over their endless deficit spending, poorly thought out military adventurism and the strange case of Terri Schiavo. By the spring of 2005, it was clear that those people weren't serious about anything but getting elected, making them no different than the Democrats. In several respects, they become more dangerous than the Democrats.

In my own country, I highlight the fact that most conservative post-war government we've had was that of Jean Chretien. In terms of austerity, balancing the books and avoiding wars that no one has any intention of winning, Chretien's Liberal government was more conservative by several degrees than the current Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which spent money in ways that would make social democrats like Pierre Trudeau smile. Liberals hate it when I point that out, but it is an inescapable truth.

I'm often called out for exclusively "picking on conservatives", but those who have done so don't understand my motives. I tend to leave liberals alone for the simple reason that liberalism is already mostly discredited. In fact, the liberalism of the 1960s through the late 80s no longer exists in any real way. Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Jean Chretien moved the left to the center and, while more leftist voices are still out there, they're mostly marginalized within their own parties.

The NDP didn't rise to Opposition in Canada because Canadians necessarily agree with their socialist positions as much as we wanted an opposition party that will actually oppose things from time to time. The Liberal Party of Canada hasn't existed for any reason other than electoral positioning and bloody infighting since the 1970s. They only won in the 1990s because the Progressive Conservative coalition fractured nationally and split the vote.

But when the Conservatives reunified in 2002, the Liberals were buried under an avalanche of their own self-aggrandizing stupidity and fratricide. As we've seen in four successive elections, even most Liberals are exhausted by and disgusted with the Liberal Party. While everything the NDP believes is wrong, they at least believe in something. In their thieving arrogance and electioneering fiscal ineptitude, the Harper Conservatives have essentially become the Liberals, thereby helping the NDP fill the vacuum the Grits left behind.

I believe that conservatism is the answer. I only differ in what conservatism has become. When the mainstream left moved to the center, the right responded by veering into a fantasyland, largely abandoned its traditional principals and took to their bosoms the worst aspects of populism and liberalism. After the 1992 defeat of George Herbert Walker Bush by Bill Clinton, the GOP stopped being the party of traditional conservatism and instead became a collection of revolutionary populists that presidents like Bush, Reagan and Eisenhower wouldn't recognize.

When Newt Gingrich heralds himself as the intellectual father of the modern conservative movement, he isn't at all wrong. And that, I believe, is one of the central problems facing both conservatism and the United States. Gingrich was among the first modern conservatives to adopt a populist platform and revolutionary rhetoric. And for all of his self-celebrated credentials as a historian, he still doesn't seem to understand that populist revolution is incompatible with what conservatism was for 200 years, nor is it easily adaptable to either a republican or parliamentary form of government.

Gingrich is every bit as important and transformative historical figure as he thinks he is, but for very different and, ultimately negative, reasons. His bad joke of a presidential campaign and his monumental self-regard shouldn't obscure that.

One of the things I should also point out is that many of the negative things that I said about the second Bush administration were echoed five years later by the Tea Party, although they had a far different understanding of where things went wrong than I did. Despite my recent focus on the Tea Party and the invective that I regularly throw at them, they aren't responsible for the drift of conservatism. That started well before the famous (and hypocritical and nonsensical) Santelli rant and the rise of Glenn Beck.

This may only be interesting to me. If so, I apologize in advance. On the other hand, you might learn something or even change the way you look at things, if only a little. Stranger things have happened.

Let's see what happens.